A haunted house is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property. Parapsychologists attribute haunting to the spirits of the dead and the effect of violent or tragic events in the building's past such as murder, accidental death, or suicide. More parsimonious explanations for the perception that a house is haunted include misinterpreting noises naturally present in structures, waking dreams, suggestibility, and the effect of toxic substances in environments that can cause hallucinations.
In 2005, Gallup polls conducted in three countries—the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom—showed that more people believe in haunted houses than any of the other paranormal items tested, with 37% of Americans, 28% of Canadians, and 40% of Britons believing.
Read more about Haunted House: Commercial Haunted Houses, Legal Aspects, Possible Causes, Short Stories and Novels, Films
Famous quotes containing the words haunted house, haunted and/or house:
“In the haunted house no quarter is given: in that respect
It’s very much business as usual. The reductive principle
Is no longer there, or isn’t enforced as much as before.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Ghosts seem harder to please than we are; it is as though they haunted for haunting’s sake—much as we relive, brood, and smoulder over our pasts.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)